Mirena Crash: A Journal

This post will be updated over the next few weeks as a individual offers her personal experiences after her Mirena removal.

She has offered to journal this experience after friends warned her of the possibility of a “Mirena Crash” after having it removed. We posted on our FB page last night about this and some said they didn’t experience a crash and others had horror stories to share. We’re hoping the gal offering her experiences here doesn’t have a “Crash.” Her insight and your comments about your experiences are valuable to our community. Please feel free to comment with your personal experiences.

The comments, emotions and experiences are her own and are not necessarily reflective of the opinions of Crunchy Moms.

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August 28, 2014

Today is the day I am freed from my Mirena IUD.

My Mirena was placed 1 year after our last child was born. I wanted a birth control method that didn’t involve hormones, so I opted for a hormone-free IUD and later discovered in the paperwork that they had mistakenly placed the Mirena. I wasn’t going to go back for them to take it out and place another, mostly because of the discomfort from the first time.

I am currently on my fourth year.

When I got the Mirena in August 2010, I had lost all of my baby weight from the previous August’s birth of our son. I was in great health. I had no issues with my periods, cramps, etc. The Mirena was solely for prevention of pregnancy.

During this time a friend with an IUD became pregnant. It was a tubal and resulted in the loss of her Fallopian tube. This resulted in an ongoing fear which led to multiple wasted pregnancy tests when there was a weird cramp or other pregnancy-ish symptom.

I had a slowly decreasing monthly period for about 6 months after it was place and then they stopped. It was about that time that my skin began to change.

I went from smooth, blemish free skin to something that resembles adolescence on my face. There is a part of me that doesn’t know why I didn’t think of this before. For women, bleeding is a natural release of toxins in our body. A cleansing. Basically, I plugged that up when I got the IUD.

I also gained 30 lbs.

I have struggled to maintain any level of anything that resembles a libido.

Emotionally, I have been a roller coaster. I can always tell when my body would think it should be having a cycle. Despite the minimal bleeding (literally, minimal), I could feel it coming mostly in my emotions and would turn into a complete bear for about a week. My husband was usually the one that would tell me that I would have my “red toilet paper” soon because I was snappy with him.

So, today I am freed. I am hoping they pull it out and that’s it. I admit I am a little worried about the reports of women becoming emotional wrecks. Stories of women bleeding for weeks and even months is also a concern.

I will update soon. Wish me luck.

August 29, 2014

I’ll go back and talk about what it was like yesterday.

I honestly expected the removal of this “thing” lodged in my uterus to feel like she was ripping out a gut hook, but I didn’t know she had even pulled it out until she held it up like a prize and proclaimed “Here it is!!” like I had just delivered a beautiful bouncing piece of plastic.

It was confirmed that they had used a Mirena, even though I had asked for a Paraguard.

I haven’t experienced any cramping at all. About two hours after I started to bleed, but it was very minimal, lasted just a few hours and then stopped suddenly. I haven’t had any further bleeding. I was expecting to be on the verge of bleeding to death by now, but such is not the case.

Like so many others have mentioned, I am completely exhausted. It hit me about 8 hours after removal last night. So bad, in fact, that I didn’t feel safe to drive. It felt like I had been awake for days on end. By 6pm, I was so tired that I could barely get myself off of the couch. Today is much the same. I woke up with a horrible, horrible headache. I have been battling it all day. About four hours into my day I was beginning to lose steam and was so tired by six hours into my day that I left my office and went out into my vehicle to lay back in the seat for a few minutes.

As I write this, it’s about 6pm and the pure exhaustion, which I am assuming is related to the sudden hormone change, is crazy. The headache is slowly building once again. I am attempting to flush my system as quickly as I can with lots of water.

August 30, 2014

Woke up with a headache again. The exhaustion lingers. I felt tired when I woke up this morning. The acne that I have long thought to be caused by the IUD is clearing up at at just under 48 hours after removal. I can’t help but think that this is confirmation that this is why my skin took a turn for the worse shortly after the IUD was placed.

September 3, 2014

It’s been 6 days and there are definite changes in my body showing up after the Mirena was removed. I experienced headaches nearly every morning for the first three days. The rumors of extreme exhaustion were SO true. I was beyond exhausted for about four days. I opted to drink and drink and drink water and tea to flush it out. On the 5th day, no headaches and TONS of energy. Like, WHAT!! Where did that come from.

I started cramping on the 4th night and had a small bleeding episode on the 5th day. Literally 24 hours of light, light bleeding. Bright red to dark for 24 hours like a normal cycle and that was it. The cramping was minimal.

The most amazing changes…

My acne has mostly cleared up. Within 48 hours. Going from near perfect skin to this mess for four years was detrimental to my self esteem. I realize that now. But, it’s cleared up so fast it’s kind of crazy.

My face was swollen. I seriously thought that the 30 lbs i had gained had given me a fat round face, but in 6 days, my face has gone back to normal. Thinking about it now, my face has been “puffy” for 3 1/2 years. And, just like that, it looks like I was retaining water on my face and lost it. Hello cheek bones. Nice to see you again.

Outside of those two things (which make me very, very happy) I have also ….

Lost four pounds.

Regained my libido.

That’s about it for now. Totally worth getting it removed so far. Those headaches and fatigue at the beginning were intense, but not worthy of being called a crash.

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